Crimson Rapture (29 page)

Justin
chuckled and shook his head. "Mushrooms, sweetheart, did you have
any?"

She
nodded absentmindedly as she reached for him. And Cajun suddenly started
laughing. Justin quickly stopped her hands and momentarily contented her by
holding her against him, but keeping her anxious hands firmly behind her back.
"What were they, Cajun?"

"The
answer should be becoming obvious. The only true aphrodisiac I know of."

Justin
shot a shocked glance at him, then looked back at Christina with a widening
smile of disbelief. He too suddenly laughed. "I don't believe it. My God,
I was born under a lucky star."

"Ask
her how many she ate."

"How
many mushrooms did you swallow, sweetheart?"

Christina
decided she was going to die if he didn't stop talking and start kissing her.
"Justin, please, I don't understand why we have to talk of food and stars
and things when I just want—"

Justin
buried her head in his chest and through his laughter managed to ask his last
question. "Just tell me how long it will last."

"Longer
than you, my friend," Cajun bellowed with laughter as he left,
"longer than you..."

Thinking
that would be a most interesting challenge, Justin listened to his friend's
laughter all the way down the ladder. Then he finally turned his complete
attention to her. "Now tell me just exactly what you want."

And
Christina's laughter, her freed hands, made this perfectly clear.

* * * * *

The
first thing she felt upon waking was hunger. A ferocious hunger such as she
never before experienced. Then as she moved, her body registered exhaustion,
utter, complete physical exhaustion. She stretched and turned in discomfort
only to discover a soreness as if, as if she had spent the entire night making
love...

The
memory crashed into consciousness at the exact moment she heard his chuckle.

"Ah,
my sleeping beauty has finally awakened. I was beginning to get worried but
then," he chuckled again, "you did earn your sleep."

Christina
sat up. Her hair fell in a mass of wild tangles to hide her nakedness but then
nakedness was not on her mind. Justin leaned casually forward with a mug in his
hand, standing with one leg bent and resting on the trunk. His unconcealed
amusement confirmed her worst fears.

"So,
how do you feel?"

"I...
I—" Her eyes shot up to him as a hand reached to her bruised lips. She
stared in marked disbelief as memories of unabashed, uninhibited, wild
lovemaking floated one by one into consciousness. She didn't do that... no, she
couldn't have done that and he—

She
suddenly blushed profusely.

"Speechless
I see," and he laughed at her. "Well, what can one say about such a
performance as yours, except that it was extraordinary, just
extraordinary," he repeated with feeling.

A
blush burned on her cheeks and she covered her face in shame.

"Don't
look so distressed, sweetheart." He was enjoying this immensely. "I
quite enjoyed myself. My only question is when can I expect an encore?"

"Ohhh,"
she said as if in pain, his amusement intolerable. "Never...
never..." she vowed, burying herself in the moss.

He
only laughed. "Never say never. I don't like to threaten you, sweetheart,
but those mushrooms do solve any problem I might have with celibacy."

She
turned slowly around. "You wouldn't?"

Justin
moved to her and leaned over, lifting her face to his. "Let's just not
tempt me, hum?" There was unexpected seriousness in his tone but this was
quickly replaced with amusement and, still chuckling, he left her alone with
what felt like undying humiliation.

She
collapsed back to the moss. Emotions, emotions, emotions swelled, then raged
through her. She felt dangerously close to tears and so tired of it. Tired of
battling him, tired of always losing, tired of being torn between her love and
yes... hate.

She
was being ripped apart.

She
didn't know how she could face him now. In truth he was starting to threaten
her. And perhaps that frightened her more than anything, for that could destroy
her love like nothing else, leaving her with only... hate. And she didn't want
that, no matter what, she didn't want that.

Somehow
she faced him, though throughout the morning she could not meet his amused
gaze. It wasn't until she talked to Cajun—his stoic disinterested manner easing
her embarrassment—that she learned she had slept for a day and a night after
the day and night of lovemaking, missing a whole twenty-four hours, which
explained her hunger. Ravenous, she spent a good portion of the morning satisfying
her hunger.

By
late afternoon Justin and Jacob disappeared to attend Diego. Diego's condition,
or at least his pain, had worsened, Cajun quietly explained, as he watched
Christina's gaze follow Justin down the beach. Concerned eyes turned to him and
she stood up, thinking she might help too. "No." Cajun stopped her.
"It is difficult for a man to bear pain in a woman's company. And Justin
needs to be alone with him now."

She
wondered if Cajun's words meant Diego's time had come but she knew not to ask, for
like everyone else, Cajun shrouded Diego's illness in mystery. He always eluded
her inquiries. The thought of Diego's interminable suffering finally ending in
death caused a wave of sadness in her heart, humbling her own troubles in its
wake.

She
was not helpless and somehow she would survive this. For the while she could do
nothing about this conflict of her heart, just as Diego could do nil about his
pain. But the world was not stagnant but rather forever changing. Sooner or
later it would end. The situation would alter itself, an opportunity would
present itself, and then, then she would know what to do.

Jacob
returned after nightfall and without Justin. He went directly to the campfire
and reported to Cajun. "Diego's finally asleep now but still his frame is
wracked with convulsions." He pushed long fingers through white hair and
sighed, looking inexpressibly sad. "Justin will stay with him through the
night."

Relief
swept through Christina.

"That
is," Jacob added in a strange tone of solemnity, "if the night lasts
to the day."

Cajun's
gaze shot to Jacob with a fixed stare.

"You're
right, Cajun, you're always right. Justin is at his rope's end; he knows he
must act. Aye," he said to himself, falling into the sand exhaustedly,
feeling as though he had borne the pain he had only witnessed and knowing it
was so much worse for Justin. "Diego is Justin's curse—the only man to
show him that he can't always have what he wants."

Christina
diverted his gaze to hide her alarm. So Jacob thought Justin would soon act
against Diego! Is that why Cajun thought Justin needed to be alone with
"his curse"? And does reaching his "rope's end" actually
mean Justin would end such a helpless, doomed life as his men thought he
should?

No,
she almost said out loud. Justin would not kill a weak or defenseless man. A
man who, no matter what crime he had committed against Justin, had once been
his friend. He was not capable of coldblooded murder, if even for revenge.

She
told herself this vehemently over and over again.

But
doubts crept into her thoughts.

She
excused herself early, pleading exhaustion, and sought the privacy of their
cave. Once in the hallowed darkness of the cavern, she lay on the bed of moss
to stare up into the star-filled night, just thinking. Time crept slowly past.
She knew not how long she lay there tossing and turning, lost to an unending
stream of unpleasant thoughts, but it was long enough to hear everyone retire.

Sleep
continued to prove elusive. Anxious musings kept her tossing and turning. The
soothing lure of rushing water could quiet neither mind nor body, no matter how
hard she concentrated. Hours flew past midnight and finally, when she realized
she had watched the progression of a bright crescent moon rise to the equinox,
she got up.

A
long walk on the beach would serve as a sleeping potion.

She
stepped quietly outside and down the steps to the pond, then alongside the
riverbed heading to the ocean. The campfire had died to hot red embers but the
bright crescent moon cast long shadows. The sand felt cool on her bare feet but
the air was so quiet and still; that perfect temperature, neither warm nor
cool. Small waves gently lapped onto shore. She breathed deeply at the water's
edge and felt her thoughts slow. All tension was absorbed by a near mystical calmness
of the quiet night.

And
quite suddenly it shattered as she heard it, that cry, Diego's cry sounding
from the far distance. She stared in helpless horror at the natural jetty
separating their beach from the beach that housed Diego's small hut. Another
cry sounded like a desperate plea. She heard Justin reply and though the words
were inaudible, his tone was not.

He
was angry.

Alarmed
and knowing she should not, she found herself moving trancelike to the jetty.
The voices grew ever louder. Diego was begging for mercy! Hearing this, having
no idea what she would do, only knowing to stop it, she scurried out in the
water to escape the jetty rocks. She made her way around the rocks and then
stopped dead in her tracks.

Outlined
in the light of the crescent moon, Justin's tall frame towered over Diego, who
had collapsed to his hands and knees in the darkness of Justin's shadow. The
poor man's arms could barely support his position and he was crying, not with
pain, but for mercy.

"My
God, don't do this to me! I beg you, Justin... I beg—" He collapsed to the
sand, his frail body racked with either pain or tears, she didn't know. Justin
remained unmoved, his gaze focused on the dark stretch of beach ahead as though
unable to bear witness to this—the sorry reduction of his friend, and Christina
watched transfixed, wanting desperately to run from it but held immobile by the
need to know what he would do.

It
seemed the battle between the two polarities in Justin; between the man she
loved and the man who frightened her to the depth of her soul. Diego was
begging for mercy; begging for his life. Justin played as a god; capable of
vengeance and a quick death or mercy and forgiveness. She would know what he
would do.

Diego
struggled and each pained gasp for life pierced her heart. He finally lifted
himself enough to grab on to Justin's legs. "You were my brother," he
deplored. "I loved you, I—"

Justin
seized him by the arms, lifting him to his feet to embrace him with all the
fierceness of his being. Tears swam quickly to her eyes, and she clutched
herself tightly.

How
could she have doubted him? How...

Shame
washed over her for having ever questioned him, and just as she was about to
turn away, Justin's arm lifted back and, with Diego still held in an embrace,
he thrust his dagger forward.

Christina's
scream never left her throat. Cajun stepped behind her at the exact moment and
clamped his hand hard over her mouth. She hardly noticed, her terrified eyes
held to Justin as Diego's body fell lifelessly at his feet.

With
the bloody dagger in hand, Justin turned to see who Cajun held in his arms. His
gaze bore into her. She had an unmistakable impression he dared her to pass
judgment. But abruptly the moment passed as Justin turned, merging into the
darkness that was the forest. It might not have happened; she suddenly could
not say for certain that he had even seen her.

Cajun
looked down at her. It was the first time she had ever seen anger in those dark
eyes. "You should not have been here."

She
searched his face, not hearing and not caring because, "He killed
him!" she cried in a sudden rush. "Diego was begging for his
mercy—"

"Yes."
Cajun stopped her. "And finally it was given. You do not understand,
la
niña"
he added softly in answer to her confusion. "You are but a
woman and a young one. Until the gods paint the world black and white, until
you have perfect understanding, you have no right to pass judgment against any
man, especially the man who has chosen you."

Confused
and frightened, she tore from Cajun's arms and cried, "How can you speak
to me so, when it was Justin who so cruelly passed judgment on life?"

He
just stared at her. She was too young and innocent for a man like Justin. He
would do no more explaining; it was not his place. Justin would do so and in
his own time.

Cajun
merely shook his head in answer and turned away. Leaving her alone and
frightened, frightened by a man and his harsh world, a world that offered no
escape.

* * * * *

Christina
was lost in a debilitating numbness that could not overcome an increasing
anxiety. Justin had been gone for three days now and no one had seen him. For
this she was glad and had it been in her power to snap her fingers and
disappear, never to see him again, she would not hesitate. But she would see
him again, and soon.